7 ms·

The other thing they don't teach you in Econ 101 is that treating corporations as obligated to keep and preserve jobs prevents them from creating societal value

by ColanR 8y ago

The other thing they don't teach you in Econ 101 is that treating corporations as obligated to keep and preserve jobs prevents them from creating societal value, and treating workers as entitled to a job disincentivises the invention of new methods of creating societal value. It causes stagnation of the economy.

knieveltech 8y ago
And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?
- stale2002 8y ago
  I'm not sure if you have noticed, but unemployment is at a multi decade low. We are not seeing pervasive unemployment, we are seeing the opposite. A situation where there are too many jobs, and not enough workers to fill them So econ 201 would say that there isn't any societial problem right now.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    Then why are wages so stagnant?
    - lamarpye 8y ago
      The increasing size of the unskilled labor pool? Could that be it?
      - knieveltech 8y ago
        ahem Income inequality suggests otherwise.
        EpicEng 8y ago
        Income is far more equal than it was when people began worrying about automation causing unemployment (~100 years ago).
    - prostoalex 8y ago
      Because wages are a small part of the total compensation package - leaving out bonuses, health, dental, vision insurance policies, 401k (with matching), employee stock purchase plans, stock options or stock units awards, access to food and on-site services, company cars, etc. They’re also not stagnant https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - zaccus 8y ago
        If my employer's group health insurance is considered part of my compensation, should I not be glad that health care costs are rising, since that drives up my total compensation?
    - nl 8y ago
      From Australia's Reserve Bank: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-10.pdf https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-10....
  - knieveltech 8y ago
    Then econ 201 clearly hasn't studied a graph of income inequality over time, and appears ready to ignore that the bulk of economic activity has shifted from manufacturing and other labor-intensive activities to the financial industry. But by all means, tell us more about how folks working "gigs", the pervasiveness of underemployment, and the frequency with which individuals have to work 3 or more jobs to survive isn't a societal problem.
  - afuchs 8y ago
    Off the top of my head, I can think of the "disappearing middle class." The trend seems to be that anyone that would have previously found themselves with a place in life, that placed them below the upper middle class rich but above the working poor, are either becoming significantly richer or significantly poorer. For perspective, a lot of households have seen a large increase in their wealth. Comparatively, the vast majority of food stamp recipients actively participate in the work force but still need government assistance. While it appears that there are many jobs available, it also appears that these jobs don't pay enough to allow the people who work them to live outside of a life of poverty.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      The 'disappearing middle class' is not what you think it is. I try to actively research the things I talk about in in searching for information on the widely reported chiseling out of the middle class I came upon this [1] paper. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. The middle class has also shrunk, going from 38.8% of society to 32%. And that's where most media reports on this generally stop, but it's incredibly misleading. That paper also gets into exactly how the size of the various socioeconomic groups are changing. This is their change in size from 1979 to 2014, as a percent of the total population: - Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8% - Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4% - Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32% - Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1% - Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8% Statistics like this are certainly subject to biased interpretation and 'massaging'. If one is curious about the source, wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [2]. Though the paper itself is very transparent in their methodology and extremely readable. I found it all eye opening to the point that it literally changed my worldview. Everybody is moving up at an incredibly rapid pace. I mean keep in mind this is only over 35 years! We are doing something very right from an economic point of view. [1] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-incomes-upper-middle-class https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stan...
  - kilotaras 8y ago
    > unemployment is at a multi decade low. Labor participation on the other hand isn't [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191734/us-civilian-labor-force-participation-rate-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191734/us-civilian-labor...
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Are those jobs comparable to the ones those people would have had before? Or is it just a glut of cheap labor that is exploited because it's cheaper than automating things?
- krrrh 8y ago
  They teach you economic history and show that predictions of pervasive unemployment and lack of spending power caused by technical innovation have been made every decade and never been borne out as new ways of delivering societal value are constantly being invented. In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never. Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effects is the at the heart of the current discussion. We’ve literally been worried about robots replacing all workers since Fritz Lang made Metropolis in the 1920s. Maybe those concerns were early and maybe we’re repeating ourselves. It’s not really clear.
  - existencebox 8y ago
    This may be a slight tangent, but I always took the interpretation of Metropolis as one of humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them), less in replacement; the "moloch" scene comes to mind. The only robot in the movie seemed more an analog for questions of humanity, blurring the line of human and machine, and additionally touching on the whole classic "reviving a loved one" tropes. (Not to distract from your point, other works such as Rossam's universal Robots definitely covered the subject matter you refer to, I'm being pedantic about Metropolis largely because the subtle difference I'm emphasizing feels to me as what makes it _so much more accurate and predictive_ to the actual relationship between man, machine, and the owners of production.)
    - toyg 8y ago
      > humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them) Oh, you mean like Uber and Deliveroo drivers? In the last century, humans served machines. In this century, they will serve algorithms. Lang's work is more relevant than ever. In many ways we are re-living the events of 100 years ago, only this time the US are in the driving seat, rather than Europe.
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        > Oh, you mean like Uber and Deliveroo drivers? How is that any different than a waiter working for a restaurant or cafe? The old nature of things doesn't change if you replace a notepad with a web service.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? I think you misunderstood. You are describing negative societal value. Long-term unemployment can ruin not only your life but the lives of your family members. Econ 201's solution is to punt on the issue and start doing calculus, because the economics orthodoxy was developed by heartless market neoliberals and computer scientists, and they can't really rationalize it in human terms. You literally have to go to grad school to un-learn all this shit.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Perhaps you should go ask a blacksmith. btw, unemployment is extremely low currently.
  - joejerryronnie 8y ago
    Just wait a couple hundred years and your skills will be back in demand. Artisanal blacksmiths make a killing today.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      Sure, all twelve of them. It's a cottage industry, but I think you understood the point I was making.
onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
Also, clothing is a commodity. Whatever benefit Uniqlo shareholders get from this will be short-lived as clothing prices drop around the world, benefiting all clothes buyers (everyone) at the expense of a textile workers, who -- at least for the time being -- can easily find a job elsewhere. At some point, automation might be a cause for concern. But I really don't think this is that type of headline...
- nerdponx 8y ago
  My argument is that this effect is small, diluted, and doesn't admit a strong positive feedback loop. Whereas the effect of sudden unemployment with no social safety net or training can trigger a strong negative feedback loop. You have the potential for strongly negative outcomes concentrated on a small number of people. Now the question becomes, "is that a bad thing?" My answer is yes, because the forces that produce the negative feedback compound with each other. It becomes a "negative welfare contagion". It also is fundamentally unjust.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - blackbrokkoli 8y ago
    But your argument is solely build upon fancy words. Here, let me pull an absurd scenarios out of nowhere too: Two of the now jobless workers are destined to become the next Beethoven and Musk, only able to follow their dreams being relieved of their crushing day job. It is just absurd to diminish the positive effects of automation just because the negative effects combined with the (US-only) horrible state of state provided safety nets makes for better sob stories.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vesak 8y ago
Exactly! Corporations should be free to do pretty much anything to increase value (except for a few obvious things like causing environmental damage), but also they will need to be taxed heavily, and those taxes should be spread out via basic income to everyone. This needs to be done in a global scale, otherwise those companies will just tax optimize all the income away.
Vinnl 8y ago
Unemployment isn't the problem, and forcing corporations to keep and preserve jobs is not the solution. Lack of income, however, is a problem. If machines generate a lot of value, but only the owners of those machines can profit from that value, that is problematic. Thus, we'll need to find a way that combines providing value to most people, with a mechanism that actually results in methods that provide that value (e.g. machines) being developed and maintained.

by ColanR 8y ago

knieveltech 8y ago

And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?

stale2002 8y ago
I'm not sure if you have noticed, but unemployment is at a multi decade low. We are not seeing pervasive unemployment, we are seeing the opposite. A situation where there are too many jobs, and not enough workers to fill them So econ 201 would say that there isn't any societial problem right now.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  Then why are wages so stagnant?
  - lamarpye 8y ago
    The increasing size of the unskilled labor pool? Could that be it?
    - knieveltech 8y ago
      ahem Income inequality suggests otherwise.
      - EpicEng 8y ago
        Income is far more equal than it was when people began worrying about automation causing unemployment (~100 years ago).
  - prostoalex 8y ago
    Because wages are a small part of the total compensation package - leaving out bonuses, health, dental, vision insurance policies, 401k (with matching), employee stock purchase plans, stock options or stock units awards, access to food and on-site services, company cars, etc. They’re also not stagnant https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - zaccus 8y ago
      If my employer's group health insurance is considered part of my compensation, should I not be glad that health care costs are rising, since that drives up my total compensation?
  - nl 8y ago
    From Australia's Reserve Bank: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-10.pdf https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-10....
- knieveltech 8y ago
  Then econ 201 clearly hasn't studied a graph of income inequality over time, and appears ready to ignore that the bulk of economic activity has shifted from manufacturing and other labor-intensive activities to the financial industry. But by all means, tell us more about how folks working "gigs", the pervasiveness of underemployment, and the frequency with which individuals have to work 3 or more jobs to survive isn't a societal problem.
- afuchs 8y ago
  Off the top of my head, I can think of the "disappearing middle class." The trend seems to be that anyone that would have previously found themselves with a place in life, that placed them below the upper middle class rich but above the working poor, are either becoming significantly richer or significantly poorer. For perspective, a lot of households have seen a large increase in their wealth. Comparatively, the vast majority of food stamp recipients actively participate in the work force but still need government assistance. While it appears that there are many jobs available, it also appears that these jobs don't pay enough to allow the people who work them to live outside of a life of poverty.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    The 'disappearing middle class' is not what you think it is. I try to actively research the things I talk about in in searching for information on the widely reported chiseling out of the middle class I came upon this [1] paper. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. The middle class has also shrunk, going from 38.8% of society to 32%. And that's where most media reports on this generally stop, but it's incredibly misleading. That paper also gets into exactly how the size of the various socioeconomic groups are changing. This is their change in size from 1979 to 2014, as a percent of the total population: - Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8% - Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4% - Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32% - Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1% - Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8% Statistics like this are certainly subject to biased interpretation and 'massaging'. If one is curious about the source, wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [2]. Though the paper itself is very transparent in their methodology and extremely readable. I found it all eye opening to the point that it literally changed my worldview. Everybody is moving up at an incredibly rapid pace. I mean keep in mind this is only over 35 years! We are doing something very right from an economic point of view. [1] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-incomes-upper-middle-class https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stan...
- kilotaras 8y ago
  > unemployment is at a multi decade low. Labor participation on the other hand isn't [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191734/us-civilian-labor-force-participation-rate-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191734/us-civilian-labor...
- int_19h 8y ago
  Are those jobs comparable to the ones those people would have had before? Or is it just a glut of cheap labor that is exploited because it's cheaper than automating things?
krrrh 8y ago
They teach you economic history and show that predictions of pervasive unemployment and lack of spending power caused by technical innovation have been made every decade and never been borne out as new ways of delivering societal value are constantly being invented. In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never. Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effects is the at the heart of the current discussion. We’ve literally been worried about robots replacing all workers since Fritz Lang made Metropolis in the 1920s. Maybe those concerns were early and maybe we’re repeating ourselves. It’s not really clear.
- existencebox 8y ago
  This may be a slight tangent, but I always took the interpretation of Metropolis as one of humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them), less in replacement; the "moloch" scene comes to mind. The only robot in the movie seemed more an analog for questions of humanity, blurring the line of human and machine, and additionally touching on the whole classic "reviving a loved one" tropes. (Not to distract from your point, other works such as Rossam's universal Robots definitely covered the subject matter you refer to, I'm being pedantic about Metropolis largely because the subtle difference I'm emphasizing feels to me as what makes it _so much more accurate and predictive_ to the actual relationship between man, machine, and the owners of production.)
  - toyg 8y ago
    > humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them) Oh, you mean like Uber and Deliveroo drivers? In the last century, humans served machines. In this century, they will serve algorithms. Lang's work is more relevant than ever. In many ways we are re-living the events of 100 years ago, only this time the US are in the driving seat, rather than Europe.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > Oh, you mean like Uber and Deliveroo drivers? How is that any different than a waiter working for a restaurant or cafe? The old nature of things doesn't change if you replace a notepad with a web service.
nerdponx 8y ago
unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? I think you misunderstood. You are describing negative societal value. Long-term unemployment can ruin not only your life but the lives of your family members. Econ 201's solution is to punt on the issue and start doing calculus, because the economics orthodoxy was developed by heartless market neoliberals and computer scientists, and they can't really rationalize it in human terms. You literally have to go to grad school to un-learn all this shit.
EpicEng 8y ago
Perhaps you should go ask a blacksmith. btw, unemployment is extremely low currently.
- joejerryronnie 8y ago
  Just wait a couple hundred years and your skills will be back in demand. Artisanal blacksmiths make a killing today.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    Sure, all twelve of them. It's a cottage industry, but I think you understood the point I was making.

onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago

Also, clothing is a commodity. Whatever benefit Uniqlo shareholders get from this will be short-lived as clothing prices drop around the world, benefiting all clothes buyers (everyone) at the expense of a textile workers, who -- at least for the time being -- can easily find a job elsewhere. At some point, automation might be a cause for concern. But I really don't think this is that type of headline...

nerdponx 8y ago
My argument is that this effect is small, diluted, and doesn't admit a strong positive feedback loop. Whereas the effect of sudden unemployment with no social safety net or training can trigger a strong negative feedback loop. You have the potential for strongly negative outcomes concentrated on a small number of people. Now the question becomes, "is that a bad thing?" My answer is yes, because the forces that produce the negative feedback compound with each other. It becomes a "negative welfare contagion". It also is fundamentally unjust.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- blackbrokkoli 8y ago
  But your argument is solely build upon fancy words. Here, let me pull an absurd scenarios out of nowhere too: Two of the now jobless workers are destined to become the next Beethoven and Musk, only able to follow their dreams being relieved of their crushing day job. It is just absurd to diminish the positive effects of automation just because the negative effects combined with the (US-only) horrible state of state provided safety nets makes for better sob stories.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vesak 8y ago

Exactly! Corporations should be free to do pretty much anything to increase value (except for a few obvious things like causing environmental damage), but also they will need to be taxed heavily, and those taxes should be spread out via basic income to everyone. This needs to be done in a global scale, otherwise those companies will just tax optimize all the income away.

Vinnl 8y ago

Unemployment isn't the problem, and forcing corporations to keep and preserve jobs is not the solution. Lack of income, however, is a problem. If machines generate a lot of value, but only the owners of those machines can profit from that value, that is problematic. Thus, we'll need to find a way that combines providing value to most people, with a mechanism that actually results in methods that provide that value (e.g. machines) being developed and maintained.